
Class: 



Book_ 







%iOT \itfA, 



C0E2RIGHT DEPOSm 



2Dije Httiersitie literature Series 

THE DESERTED VILLAGE 
THE TRAVELLER 

AND OTHER POEMS 



1/ 



BI 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
ii 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, INTRO- 
DUCTIONS AND NOTES 




?? WASW 



^17?"^ 



/ 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 11 East Seventeenth Street 
Chicago : 28 Lakeside Building 



BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH OF OLIVER 
GOLDSMITH. 



Oliver Goldsmith, the son of a humble village 
preacher, was born at the parsonage in Pallas, the 
property of the Edgeworths of Edgeworthstown, in the 
county of Longford, Ireland, November 10, 1728. 
He died in London, wept over by Johnson, Burke, 
Reynolds, and Garrick, April 4, 1774, five months over 
his forty-fifth year. Between the obscure Irish village 
birthplace and the monument in Westminster Abbey 
stretched a career which was half in clouds and half 
in sunshine, a rainbow of tears and smiles. He had 
no advantages of birth other than the priceless one 
of a simple-hearted father, " passing rich with forty 
pounds a year," who lives again in the preacher of the 
" Deserted Village " and more minutely in the hero of 
the " Vicar of Wakefield." His life to outward seem- 
ing was a series of blunders. He was tossed about 
from one school to another, learning many things 
which somehow seem more in his life than Latin or 
Greek. He learned to play the flute, and he fell in 
love with vagrancy, or rather the vagrant in him was 
carefully nourished by an unworldly, unsophisticated 
father, a merry-andrew of a teacher, and by fickle For- 
tune herself. An uncle, the Rev. Mr. Contarine, was 
the prudent man of the family, always appearing as the 
necessary counterpoise to prevent Oliver from flying off 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

into irrecoverable wandering. By his advice and help 
the lad passed from his schools to Trinity College, 
Dublin, perhaps a needful discipline, but certainly a 
harsh one ; for there, where one might look for genial 
surroundings to one afterward to become a master in 
literature, the luckless youth was to find new trials to 
his sensitive spirit and to have his compensation in 
pleasures quite unprovided in the college scheme. His 
poverty compelled him to take a menial position, he 
had a brutal tutor, and after he had been a year and 
a half at college his father died, leaving him in still 
more abject poverty than before. He wrote street 
ballads to save himself from actual starvation, and 
sold them for five shillings apiece. In all this murky 
gloom the lights that twinkle are the secret joy with 
which the poor poet would steal out at night to hear 
his ballads sung, and the quick rush of feeling in 
which he would use his five shillings upon some for- 
lorn beggar, whose misery made him forget his own. 
Once he ran away from college, stung by some too 
sharp insult from his tutor, but he returned to take 
his degree, and at the end of three years, carrying 
away some scraps of learning, he returned to his mo- 
ther's house. 

There for two years he led an aimless, happy life, 
waiting for the necessary age at which he could qual- 
ify for orders in the church. He had few wants, and 
gayly shared the little family's small stock of provision 
and joint labors, teaching in the village school, fishing, 
strolling, flute-playing, and dancing. They were two 
years that made his Irish home always green in his 
memory, a spot almost dazzling for brightness when 
he looked back on it from the hardships of his Lon- 
don life. When the two years were passed he applied 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 1 

to the Bishop for orders, but was rejected for various 
reasons according to various authorities, but the most 
sufficient one in any case was his own unwillingness to 
take the step urged upon him by friends. He was 
sent by his uncle to begin the study of law, but the 
fifty pounds with which he was furnished were lost at 
play, and the vagabond returned forgiven to his uncle's 
house. He had visions of coming to America which 
fortunately never passed into waking resolution, for it 
is to be feared there would have been small likelihood 
of his blossoming into literature on this side of the 
water in the days of ante-revolutionary flatness. 

Medicine was the next resort, and Goldsmith was 
sent by his uncle to Edinburgh. Although the title 
of doctor has become familiarly connected with his 
name, it is very certain that he did not acquire the 
degree in Edinburgh, but afterward in a foreign uni- 
versity upon one of his wanderings. Few traditions 
remain of his life at Edinburgh ; three or four amus- 
ing letters were written thence, but the impression 
made by them and by such gossip as survives is that 
he was an inimitable teller of humorous stories and a 
capital singer of Irish songs. His profession of medi- 
cine, however, gave a show of consistency to his pur- 
pose of travel on the continent, where he persuaded 
himself and his friends that he should qualify him- 
self for his professional degree. In point of fact he 
spent his time in a happy-go-lucky fashion, wandering 
from place to place, and singing a song for a sixpence. 
The philosophic vagabond in the " Vicar of Wake- 
field" is but a transparent mask for Goldsmith's own 
features at this time. "I had some knowledge of 
music," says that entertaining philosopher, "with a tol- 
erable voice ; I now turned what was once my amuse- 



8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

ment into a present means of subsistence. I passed 
among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among 
such of the French as were poor enough to be very 
merry ; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion 
to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant's 
house towards nightfall, I played one of my most 
merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, 
but subsistence for the next day. I once or twice at- 
tempted to play for people of fashion, but they always 
thought my performance odious, and never rewarded 
me even with a trifle." Although Goldsmith's medi- 
cal knowledge was scarcely increased by his continen- 
tal experience, he was wittingly or unwittingly adding 
daily to that knowledge of men and nature which 
shines through his lightest writings. " The Traveller " 
is a distillation of these wanderings. 

He returned to England in 1756, after two years of 
desultory life on the continent, and landed, we are told, 
without a farthing in his pockets. He lived by hook 
and by crook, serving in an apothecary's shop in a 
humble capacity, acting as tutor, it is said, under a 
feigned name, and living the while, as he afterward 
declared, among beggars. Then, falling in with an 
old friend, and getting some little assistance, for Gold- 
smith seemed always one of the open-handed, ready to 
receive and ready to bestow, he became a physician 
in a humble way, struggling for a living in doctoring 
those only one degree richer than himself. By a curi- 
ous coincidence, one of his patients was a printer work- 
ing under Samuel Richardson, printer, and, what is 
more, author of " Clarissa." From a hint given by 
this man, Goldsmith applied to Richardson and was 
given occupation as a proof-reader. Then, falling in 
with an old schoolfellow whose father kept a school 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 

in Peckham, Goldsmith became an usher, and a miser- 
able time he had of it. " Ay," cries George Prim- 
rose's cousin to him, in the "Vicar of Wakefield," 
"this is indeed a very pretty career that has been 
checked out for you. I have been an usher at a board- 
ing-school myself, and may I die by an anodyne neck- 
lace, but I had rather be an under-turnkey in New- 
gate. I was up early and late ; I was brow-beat by 
the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress, 
worried by the boys within, and never permitted to 
stir out to meet civility abroad. But are you sure you 
are fit for a school ? Let me examine you a little. 
Have you been bred apprentice to the business ? No. 
Then you won't do for a school. Can you dress the 
boys' hair ? No. Then you won't do for a school. 
Have you had the smallpox ? No. Then you won't 
do for a school. Can you lie three in a bed ? No. 
Then you will never do for a school. Have you got a 
good stomach ? Yes. Then you will by no means do 
for a school. No, sir, if you are for a genteel, easy 
profession, bind yourself seven years as an apprentice- 
to turn a cutler's wheel, but avoid a school by any 
means." In the same conversation the city cousin ad- 
vises George to take up authorship for a trade, and it 
was indeed by the humblest entrance that Goldsmith 
passed into the domain where afterward he was to be 
recognized as master. Griffiths, the bookseller, dined 
one day at the school where Goldsmith was usher. 
The conversation turned upon the " Monthly Review," 
owned and conducted by Griffiths. Something said 
by Goldsmith led to further consideration, and the 
usher left the school to board and lodge with the book- 
seller, to have a small regular salary, and to devote 
himself to the " Monthly Review." 



10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

The history of literature at this time in England 
gives much space necessarily to the bookseller. In 
the transition period of authorship, this middleman 
occupied a position of power and authority not since 
accorded to him ; it was a singular relation which the 
drudging author held to his employer, and Goldsmith 
from this time forward was scarcely ever free from a 
dependence upon the autocrats of the book trade. He 
entered the profession of literature as upon something 
which was a little more profitable and certainly more 
agreeable than the occupation of an usher in a board- 
ing-school, or the profession of a doctor without pay- 
ing clients. A profession which now dignifies its 
members was then without respect socially, and at- 
tended by all the meanness which springs from a false 
position. The rich and powerful in government looked 
upon it as appointed only to serve the ends of the am- 
bitious, and the poor author had to struggle to main- 
tain his independence of nature. The men who could 
sell their talents and their self-respect for gold and 
place jostled roughly their nobler comrades who served 
literature faithfully in poverty, and it was only now 
and then that the fickle breath of popular favor 
wafted some author's book into warmer waters. So 
crowding was this Grub Street life that Goldsmith 
sought release from it in a vain attempt after a gov- 
ernment appointment as medical officer at Coromandel. 
He was driven back into the galleys from which he 
was striving to escape, yet out of this life there began 
to issue the true products of his genius. He brooded 
over his own and bis fellows' condition. Something 
within him made protest against the ignoble state of 
literature, and he wrote the first book which gave him 
a name, — " An Enquiry into the Present State of 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 11 

Polite Learning in Europe." The subject was wrung 
from his fortunes, but the style was the music which 
he had never failed to hear from boyhood. Style, 
bred of no special study at Trinity College, nor too 
closely allied with learning, but a gift of nature, 
guarded well and cherished by the varying fortune 
which was moulding his mind in the secret fashion 
that makes a genuine surprise when discovered : this 
was seen in his book, and justified his place in the 
great profession of authorship. There is in Gold- 
smith's life, as in Andersen's, and in that of many a 
man of genius, the sad, sweet story of the Ugly Duck- 
ling. Pecked at and scorned by meaner associates, 
conscious of disadvantages and of inferiority in infe- 
rior things, a divine ray of hope and longing never 
left him ; and when at last he gave outward expression 
to the genius in him, he found himself amongst his 
true fellows, recognized by men of genius as their as- 
sociate. From this time forward Goldsmith knew his 
place and took it. He was thirty-one years of age, 
and in the remainder of his life he wrote his essays in 
" The Bee " and " The Citizen of the World ; " " The 
Yicar of Wakefield," " The Traveller," " The Deserted 
Village," his shorter poems, and the two comedies, 
"A Good-natured Man" and " She Stoops to Con- 
quer." In quantity not a large showing, but glisten- 
ing with that pure fancy and happy temper which are 
among the choicest gifts of literature to a tired world. 
These are his works which give him his place in liter- 
ature, but during the time when they were composed 
he was constantly at work upon tasks. He wrote his 
histories of England and Rome and his " Animated 
Nature," which, despite its unscientific cast, is a store- 
house of delightful reading ; and he wrote reviews, 



12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

essays, prefaces, translations, and the like, quite beyond 
record. 

Yet all this time he was in debt. He did not want 
because his work was ill paid or he was not indus- 
trious, but because his money slipped through his 
ringers, too volatile to hold it fast. Some of it went 
upon his back in the odd finery which has stuck to 
his reputation, but a large share went to the poor and 
miserable. Look at the poor man lying dead in his 
solitary chamber. " The staircase of Birch Court is 
said to have been filled with mourners, the reverse of 
domestic : women without a home, without domesticity 
of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to 
weep for, outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, 
to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and char- 
itable." 1 

There were two sets of people who looked upon 
Oliver Goldsmith the poet, and each saw correctly 
enough what each was capable of seeing. One saw in 
him a shiftless, vain, awkward, homely fellow, thrust- 
ing himself into good company, blundering, blurting 
out nonsense or malapropos sayings, a gooseberry 
fool. The other, containing men of genius, laughed 
at "poor Goldy," but never failed to seek his com- 
pany and to receive him as their equal. When Burke 
was told of his death, he burst into tears. Reynolds 
was painting when the news was brought to him : he 
laid his pencil aside and would not go back that day 
to his studio, a sign of grief never shown in times of 
deep family distress. Johnson never ceased to mourn 
him, and cast his profoundest conviction of the poet's 
genius into the monumental lines which form one of 
the noblest of elegies. 

1 Forster's The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, ii. 467. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

" The Deserted Village " was not Goldsmith's first 
considerable poem; that was "The Traveller," pub- 
lished five or six years earlier ; but it is the produc- 
tion which has endeared him most to readers, and it is 
in form and content one of the most melodious and 
at the same time thoughtful poems in the English lan- 
guage. Its foundations are laid deep in human na- 
ture, for it is at once the reflection of a man upon the 
beginning of his life, and the return in thought of one 
who has seen much of the world to those simple de- 
lights which are most elemental, least dependent upon 
the conventions of complex society. The poem is, be- 
sides, the contribution of an earnest thinker toward 
the solution of great national and social problems. 
Goldsmith had already shown in " The Traveller " not 
only that he was a clear-sighted observer of scenes in 
various lands and an interpreter of national character- 
istics, but that his mind had been at work on the great 
question of what constitutes the real prosperity of na- 
tions. In this poem he returns to the subject and 
makes his thought still more luminous by drawing 
a contrast between two separate conditions in the same 
nation, rather than instituting a comparison among 
several nations. 

Never was the truth of literary art, that the great- 
est success is attained when form and content are 



14 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

inseparably joined, better exemplified than in " The 
Deserted Village." Here is serious thought, but it is 
presented in such exquisite language, it is illustrated 
by such a series of charming pictures that one scarcely 
perceives at first the solidity of the structure of the 
poem. A great contemporary of Goldsmith's, Dr. 
Samuel Johnson, wrote a sonorous and thoughtful 
poem called "The Vanity of Human Wishes," but 
though it was greatly and justly praised at the time, it 
has failed to fasten itself on the affection of readers 
for lack of that translucent beauty of form which has 
preserved " The Deserted Village " and " The Trav- 
eller." 

For Goldsmith was preeminently a poet ; in his trav- 
els he saw into the soul of things ; in his reflection 
he penetrated beneath the surface, and in his expres- 
sion', both as regards words, phrases, and construction, 
he had the intuitive sense which chose the right word, 
gave music to his phrase, and made the whole poem a 
work of art. This poem, therefore, like any great 
imaginative piece, must not be examined too closely 
for an identity with prosaic fact. There is a likeness, 
unquestionably, between Sweet Auburn, and Lissoy, 
the village where Goldsmith passed his childhood ; the 
portrait of the village preacher might readily be taken 
for a sketch either of Goldsmith's father or his 
brother Henry; enthusiastic investigators even give 
the actual name of the 

" wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread ; " 

but one must never forget, if he would enter most com- 
pletely into the poet's way of looking at life, that all 
these facts of experience are transmuted into vivid 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 15 

images, creations of the poet's mind out of material 
afforded him by memory and observation. 

When Goldsmith wrote "The Deserted Village," 
he was at the height of his fame and his power. He 
was now in his forty-second year ; he had produced in 
close proximity to each other a few years before, a 
notable poem, " The Traveller," and a still more nota- 
ble piece of fiction, "The Vicar of Wakefield." He 
was the friend of the literary nobility of the day, and 
was regarded by the booksellers as an important liter- 
ary workman. The poem was published May 26, 1770. 
Its success was immediate and great. Within three 
months five editions were called for, and though we 
do not know the size of the editions, it is easy to see 
from this statement that each time the booksellers 
printed, public interest ran ahead of their calculations. 
The poem was dedicated to the great English painter, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, who returned the compliment by 
painting a picture, " Resignation," to be engraved by 
Thomas Watson and inscribed with these words : 
" This attempt to express a character in " The De- 
serted Village " is dedicated to Doctor Goldsmith, by 
his sincere friend and admirer, Joshua Rejiiolds." 

There was another poet whose name is easily linked 
with that of Goldsmith, Thomas Gray, the author of 
" An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." He 
had distilled his precious verse, and was now passing 
what proved to be the last summer of his life with his 
friend Nicholls at Malvern, when the poem came out. 
He asked to hear it read ; and listening attentively to 
it, he gave the emphatic verdict, which was much from 
Gray, " That man is a poet." , 

The fame of the poem extended far, for Goethe in 
his autobiographic memoir refers to it thus : " A 



16 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

j>oetical production, which our little circle hailed 
with transport, now occupied our attention : this was 
Goldsmith's ' The Deserted Village.' This poem 
seemed perfectly adapted to the sentiments which then 
actuated us. The pictures which it represented were 
those which we loved to contemplate and sought with 
avidity, in order to enjoy them with all the zest of 
youth." 

Goethe's attitude toward the poem suggests a line 
of research for the student who wishes to carry his 
study of the poem beyond the ordinary limits, and 
that is, an inquiry into the temper of the most 
thoughtful English, German, and French writers just 
prior to that upheaval of society which found its 
most violent expression in the French Revolution. 

The reader of the poem, as well as of Goldsmith's 
verse in general, if he is unfamiliar with any other 
than nineteenth-century poetry, will very likely be 
puzzled by the use of words in senses unfamiliar. 
Some of these uses are pointed out in the notes, but 
many more will be learned by recourse to a good dic- 
tionary. Next to a reading of the poem for delight 
comes the scrutiny of the language, and the reader is 
advised to look closely at the words, since in many 
instances an apparent meaning will be found to be 
more modern ; the real meaning to be an historical 
one, familiar to Goldsmith, but antiquated now. In- 
deed, in some respects Goldsmith's language is more 
likely to be misinterpreted than Shakespeare's. 



DEDICATION. 

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 

Deae Sir, — I can have no expectations, in an 
address of this kind, either to add to your reputation, 
or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from 
my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which 
you are said to excel ; and I may lose much by the 
severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste 
in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, 
to which I never paid much attention, I must be in- 
dulged at present in following my affections. The 
only dedication I ever made was to my brother, be- 
cause I loved him better than most other men. He is 
since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you. 

How far you may be pleased with the versification 
and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not 
pretend to inquire ; but I know you will object (and 
indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in 
the opinion), that the depopulation it deplores is no- 
where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are 
only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To 
this I can scarce make any other answer than that I 
sincerely believe what I have written ; that I have 
taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for 
these four or five years past, to be certain of what I 
allege ; and that all my views and inquiries have led 
me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt 
to display. But this is not the place to enter into an 



18 DEDICA TION. 

inquiry, whether the country be depopulating or not ; 
the discussion would take up much room, and I should 
prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire 
the reader with a long preface, when I want his 
unfatigued attention to a long poem. 

In regretting the depopulation of the country, I in- 
veigh against the increase of our luxuries ; and here 
also I expect the shout of modern politicians against 
me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the 
fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest na- 
tional advantages ; and all the wisdom of antiquity, in 
that particular, as erroneous. Still, however, I must 
remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue 
to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which 
so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms 
have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured 
out of late on the other side of the question, that, 
merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would 
sometimes wish to be in the right. — I am, dear Sir, 
Your sincere Friend and ardent Admirer, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 

Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and plenty cheer 'd the laboring 

swain, 
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, 
And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd ; 

5 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
How often have I loiter 'd o'er thy green, 
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene ! 
How often have I paus'd on every charm, 

10 The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm, 
The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
The decent church that topt the neighboring hill, 
The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 

15 How often have I blest the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
And all the village train, from labor free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree ; 
While many a pastime circled in the shade, 

20 The young contending as the old survey'd ; 

4. Parting, i. e., departing, much as we use the phrase " to part 
with." Here summer parts with us. 

12. Decent. Following its Latin origin, the word was most 
commonly used in the eighteenth century in its sense of becom- 
ing, fit. 

19. Circled. See an equivalent phrase in line 22. 



20 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground, 

And sleights of art and feats of strength went 
round ; 

And still, as each repeated pleasure tir'd, 

Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd ; 
25 The dancing pair that simply sought renown, 

By holding out, to tire each other down ; 

The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, 

While secret laughter titter'd round the place ; 

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, 
30 The matron's glance that would those looks re- 
prove : 

These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like 
these, 

With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please ; 

These round thy bowers their cheerful influence 
shed, 

These were thy charms, — but all these charms are 
fled. 

35 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn ! 
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; 
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
And desolation saddens all thy green : 
One only master grasps the whole domain, 

40 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
But chok'd with sedges works its weedy way ; 

27. The rude sports of the village no doubt survive in English 
country life ; any one who reads the chapter A London Suburb in 
Hawthorne's Our Old Home will recognize a likeness between 
Greenwich Fair as Hawthorne saw it and the Sweet Auburn of 
Goldsmith's recollection. And American readers could supply 
from boyish pranks the explanation of 

" The swain mistrustless of his smutted face." 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 21 

Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 

45 Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, 
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall ; 
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, 

50 Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade : 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made : 
55 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied. 

A time there was, ere England's griefs began, 
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man ; 
For him light labor spread her wholesome store, 
60 Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more ; 
His best companions, innocence and health ; 
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

But times are alter'd ; trade's unfeeling train 
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ; 

44. In his Animated Nature, which is a book of descriptive 
natural history, Goldsmith uses the same term to characterize 
the bittern. " Of all these sounds," he says, " there is none so dis- 
mally hollow as the booming of the bittern. ... I remember in 
the place where I was a boy, with what terror this bird's note 
affected the whole village." 

52. Goldsmith wrote earnestly and at some length on this 
theme in the nineteenth chapter of The Vicar of Wakefield. 

63. The plural idea in train was uppermost in Goldsmith's 
mind, so that he uses the plural form in the verbs in the next line. 



22 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

65 Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose, 
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose ; 
And every want to opulence allied, 
And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 

70 Those calm desires that ask'd but little room, 

Those healthful sports that grac'd the peaceful 

scene, 
Liv'd in each look, and brighten'd all the green : 
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, 
And rural mirth and manners are no more. 

75 Sweet Auburn ! parent of the blissful hour, 
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
Here, as I take my solitary rounds 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruin'd grounds, 
And, many a year elaps'd, return to view 

so Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 

In all my wanderings round this world of care, 

In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
85 I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 

Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 

To husband out life's taper at the close, 

And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 

I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
90 Amidst the swains to show my book-learn 'd skill, 

Around my fire an evening group to draw, 

And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ; 

And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 

74. Manners has here the meaning of customs rather than be- 
havior. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 23 

Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
95 1 still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return, — and die at home at last. 

O blest retirement ! friend to life's decline, 
Retreat from care, that never must be mine, 
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these 

100 A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 

Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep 5 

105 No surly porter stands in guilty state, 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate : 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd decay, 

110 While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past. 

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. 

115 There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow, 
The mingling notes came soften'd from below : 
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, 
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young ; 
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool ; 

120 The playful children just let loose from school ; 

101. Goldsmith, writing one may say almost as a journalist, 
gave little heed to possible repetitions of his phrases, and in The 
Bee he wrote : "By struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to 
receive some wound in the conflict : the only method to come 
off victorious is by running away." 



24 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering 

wind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind : 
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. 

125 But now the sounds of population fail, 
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, 
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, 
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled. 
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing, 

130 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ; 
She, wretched matron, — f orc'd in age, for bread, 
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, 
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn — 

135 She only left of all the harmless train, 
The sad historian of the pensive plain. 

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild, 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
wo The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 

121. " I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, than such a 
Roman." — Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar, Act iv. Scene iii. i. 27. 

124. Again in his Animated Nature, Goldsmith says : " The 
nightingale's pausing song would be the proper epithet for this 
bird's music." 

141. One needs but to read Goldsmith's dedication of The 
Traveller to see how closely he copied from life in drawing this 
portrait of the village preacher. Goldsmith's use of " passing " 
is as Shakespeare's 

" She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange." 

Othello, Act I. Scene iii. 1. 1G0. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 25 

Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 

Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change, his place ; 
145 Unpractis'd he to fawn, or seek for power, 

By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour ; 

Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize, 

More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise. 

His house was known to all the vagrant train, 
150 He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain ; 

The long-remeinber'd beggar was his guest, 

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 

The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 

Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd ; 
155 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 

Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away ; 

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 

Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were 
won. 

Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to 
glow, 
wo And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side : 

165 But in his duty prompt at every call, 

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all. 
And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 

no Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, 
171. See note on line 4. 



26 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
175 Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise. 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 

180 And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
Even children follow'd, with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's 
smile. 

185 His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 

Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven : 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

190 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are 

spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way 
With blossom' d furze unprofitably gay, 

195 There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school. 
A man severe he was, and stern to view ; 
I knew him well, and every truant knew : 
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 

200 The day's disasters in his morning face ; 

Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee, 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 27 

Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 

Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. 
205 Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 

The love he bore to learning was in fault. 

The village all declar'd how much he knew ; 

'T was certain he could write, and cipher too ; 

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
210 And even the story ran that he could gauge ; 

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 

For even though vanquish'd he could argue still ; 

While words of learned length and thundering 
sound 

Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ; 
215 And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew 

That one small head could carry all he knew. 

But past is all his fame. The very spot, 
Where many a time he triumph 'd, is forgot. 
Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, 
220 Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts in- 

spir'd, 
Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retir'd, 
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks pro- 
found, 
And news much older than their ale went round. 
225 Imagination fondly stoops to trace 

209. The terms were sessions of law courts and universities. 
The tides were times and seasons, especially in the ecclesias- 
tical year. He could tell when Eastertide, for instance, would 
come. 

210. A gauger is in some places a sworn officer, whose duty 
it is to measure the contents of hogsheads, barrels, or casks. 



28 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

The parlor splendors of that festive place : 
The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, 
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door ; 
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay, 

230 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use, 
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; 
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day, 
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay, 

235 While broken teacups, wisely kept for show, 
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row. 

Yain, transitory splendors ! could not all 
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ? 
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart 

240 An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. 
Thither no more the peasant shall repair 
To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; 
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail ; 

245 No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear ; 
The host himself no longer shall be found 
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; 

226-236. The first form of this description will be found in 
the verses given later, page 88. 

232. The twelve rules ascribed to Charles I. were : 1. Urge no 
healths. 2. Profane no divine ordinances. 3. Touch no state 
matters. 4. Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make 
no companions. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad 
company. 9. Encourage no vice. 10. Make no long meal. 11. 
Repeat no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers. The royal game of 
goose was a species of checkers. 

244. Woodman's ; that is, a man versed in woodcraft, as a 
hunter, not necessarily a wood-chopper. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 29 

Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest, 
250 Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 

Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
These simple blessings of the lowly train ; 
To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 

255 Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, 
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; 
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin'd. 
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 

260 With all the freaks of wanton wealth array 'd, — 
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; 
And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
The heart, distrusting, ask if this be joy. 

265 Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey 
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 
Between a splendid and a happy land. 
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 

270 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; 
Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound, 
And rich men flock from all the world around. 

250. To kiss the cup was to touch it with the lips before pass- 
ing. Ben Jonson's well-known verses to Celia begin : — 

" Drink to me only with thine eyes, 
And I will pledge with mine ; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, 
And I '11 not look for wine." 

268. Goldsmith says a similar thing in the Citizen of the 
World, when he makes the sententious remark : " There is a 
wide difference between a conquering and a flourishing empire." 



30 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Yet count our gains : this wealth is but a name, 
That leaves our useful products still the same. 

275 Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds : 
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 

280 Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their 
growth ; 
His seat, where solitary sports are seen, 
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; 
Around the world each needful product flies, 
For all the luxuries the world supplies. 

285 While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure, all 
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. 

As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, 
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, 

290 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 

But when those charms are past, for charms are 

frail, 
When time advances, and when lovers fail, 
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 
In all the glaring impotence of dress : 

295 Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, 
In nature's simplest charms at first array'd ; 
But, verging to decline, its splendors rise, 
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; 
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, 

300 The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 
And while he sinks, without one arm to save, 
The country blooms — a garden and a grave. 

287. The use of " female " for " woman " was common as late 
as Walter Scott. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 31 

Where then, ah ! where shall poverty reside, 
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ? 

305 If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, 
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide. 
And even the bare-worn common is denied. 
If to the city sped, what waits him there ? 

310 To see profusion that he must not share ; 
To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd, 
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind ; 
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know 
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. 

315 Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, 
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade ; 
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps dis- 
play, 
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. 
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, 

320 Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train ; 
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! 
Sure these denote one universal joy ! 

305. If to some common's fenceless limits [having] strayed. 

309. If to the city [he has] sped. 

316. Artist was applied to those engaged in the useful and 

mechanic arts in Goldsmith's time. 

319. When Coleridge wrote, 

" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure -dome decree," 

he, too, like Goldsmith, was using a word not in what we regard 
as its technical sense, but as expressing a certain splendor of 
building. 

322. Even now in the thick November fogs of London, link- 
boys, or boys with torches, point the way. Before the introduc- 
tion of street lamps, such aids were common whenever the gen- 
try would move about after night-fall. 



32 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

325 Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah ! turn thine 
eyes 
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. 
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, 
Has wept at tales of innocence clistrest ; 
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 

330 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 
Now lost to all — her friends, her virtue fled — 
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the 

shower, 
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 

335 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 

She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. 

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, 
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain ? 
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
340 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. 

Ah, no ! To distant climes, a dreary scene, 
Where half the convex world intrudes between, 
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 

326. In his Citizen of the World Goldsmith has said : " These 
poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been 
flattered into beauty. . . . Perhaps now lying at the doors of 
their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible." 

336. Her [spinning] wheel. 

343-358. Goldsmith, like Englishmen of a later day, was a 
little hazy in his notion of what the wilderness of America con- 
tained. He wrote not long after Oglethorpe was giving relief 
to many poor and distressed debtors, by welcoming them to his 
colony of Georgia. The Altama is better known as the Alta- 
maha, but a certain poetic liberty attaches to the description in 
general. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 33 

Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 

345 Far different there from all that charm'd before, 
The various terrors of that horrid shore : 
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 
And fiercely shed intolerable day; 
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, 

350 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; 

Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, 
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around ; 
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; 

355 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey 
And savage men more murderous still than they ; 
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, 
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies. 
Far different these from every former scene, 

360 The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, 
The breezy covert of the warbling grove, 
That only shelter' d thefts of harmless love. 

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that part- 
ing day 
That call'd them from their native walks away; 
365 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 

Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their 

last, 
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain 
For seats like these beyond the western main ; 
And, shuddering still to face the distant deep, 
370 Eeturn'd and wept, and still return'd to weep ! 
The good old sire the first prepar'd to go 

368. It was a common phrase in the earlier colonial days to 
say of colonists that they " sate" in a particular region. 



84 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ; 
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave. 

375 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 

The fond companion of his helpless years, 

Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 

And left a lover's for a father's arms. 

With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
380 And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose ; 

And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a 
tear 

And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear ; 

Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief 

In all the silent manliness of grief. 

385 O Luxury ! thou curst by Heaven's decree, 
How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee ! 
How do thy potions, with insidious joy, 
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy ! 
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, 

390 Boast of a florid vigor not their own. 

At every draught more large and large they grow, 
A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe ; 
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, 
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 

395 Even now the devastation is begun, 
And half the business of destruction done ; 
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
I see the rural Virtues leave the land. 



398. Here begins a sort of vision in which Goldsmith pictures 
such an emigrant band leaving England for America. 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 35 

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, 

400 That idly waiting flaps with every gale, 
Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care, 
And kind connubial Tenderness, are there ; 

405 And Piety with wishes plac'd above, 
And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love. 
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, 
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ; 
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame, 

410 To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; 
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; 
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, 
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me 
so; 

415 Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel, 
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well ! 
Farewell ! and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side, 
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, 

420 Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime ; 
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain ; 
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 

425 Teach him, that states of native strength posses t, 
407. One is reminded of Bishop Berkeley's lines, 

" Religion stands r-tiptoe on the strand 
Waiting to pass to the American land." 

409. Unfit, unsuited 

418. The river Tornea or Torneo falls into the Gulf of Both- 
nia. Pambamarca is given by Peter Cunningham as a moun- 
tain near Quito. 



36 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Though very poor, may still be very blest ; 
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
As ocean sweeps the labor'd mole away ; 
While self-dependent power can time defy, 
430 As rocks resist the billows and the sky. 

427-430. " Dr. Johnson favored me at the same time by mark- 
ing the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's Deserted Village, 
which are only the last four."— Boswell. 



THE TRAVELLER ; OR A PROSPECT OF 
SOCIETY. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

" The Deserted Village " is used in this little vol- 
ume to introduce the reader to Goldsmith's poetry, be- 
cause it is the more delightful of the two poems ; and 
yet we doubt if any one who has enjoyed it will lose 
his interest as he goes on and reads " The Traveller.'' 
Dr. Johnson, no mean critic, was disposed to prefer it 
to the other poem. " Take him as a poet," he said ; 
44 his ' Traveller ' is a very fine performance ; ay, and 
so is his ' Deserted Village,' were it not sometimes 
too much the echo of his ' Traveller.' ' And at an- 
other time, when the poem first appeared, he exclaimed, 
u There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." 
" The Deserted Village " is not so much an echo of 
" The Traveller " as it is a restatement of the funda- 
mental idea in that poem under another light, as we 
have noticed in the " Introductory Note." Its form 
was determined in part by the mode of its composition. 
It would be too bald a phrase to say that it is a poeti- 
cal diary, and Goldsmith had too fine a sense of po- 
etic art to make it such ; but it follows, as it were, the 
course of its author's wanderings, and is a poetic epi- 
gram of his observations and reflections in various 
countries. 

It was begun in Switzerland in 1755, but not com- 
pleted until 1764 ; and though Goldsmith had written 



38 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

and printed much prior to that time, this was the 
first work which bore his name and was therefore his 
introduction as an author to the reading public. The 
effect of the poem upon his own reputation was great. 
He had been in the eyes of those about him a blunder- 
ing good fellow, a newspaper essayist and bookseller's 
drudge. He belonged indeed to the Literary Club, 
but it was by virtue of his complete absorption in lit- 
erary pursuits, rather than because of any separate and 
distinguished work. Now he began to be estimated 
at his real worth. " Goldsmith being mentioned," 
says Boswell, who spoke the truth in spite of his preju- 
dices, — a sort of Balaam in literature, — " Johnson 
observed that it was long before his merit came to be 
acknowledged. That he once complained to him, in 
ludicrous terms of distress, ' Whenever I write any- 
thing, the public make a point to know nothing about 
it ; ' but that his ' Traveller ' brought him into high 
reputation. Langton. 'There is not one bad line 
in that poem ; not one of Dryden's careless verses.' 
Sir Joshua. ' I was glad to hear Charles Fox say, it 
was one of the finest poems in the English language.' 
Langton. ' Why was you glad ? You surely had no 
doubt of this before.' Johnson. ' No ; the merit of 
" The Traveller " is so well established that Mr. Fox's 
praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it.' 
Sir Joshua. i But his friends may suspect they had 
too great partiality for him.' Johnson. 'Nay, sir, 
the partiality of his friends was always against him. 
It was with difficulty we could give him a hearing. 
Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject ; 
so he talked always at random. It seemed to be his 
intention to blurt out whatever was in his mind, and 
see what would become of it. He was angry, too, 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 39 

when catched in an absurdity ; but it did not prevent 
him from falling into another the next minute.'" 1 

All this was said four years after Goldsmith's death, 
but it sets before us in lively fashion the contrast he 
presented between a consummate artist in his work 
and an impetuous, half stammering talker. He was 
plainly at a disadvantage amongst men who made con- 
versation a fine art, but his spontaneity, nevertheless, 
must have made him a delightful companion. " The 
Traveller," as we have said, gave him at once intel- 
lectual repute among his peers. It gave him place 
a little more slowly with the general public, but it 
needed only " The Vicar of Wakefield " shortly after 
to give him an established reputation. 

It will be noticed that Goldsmith in his dedication 
of " The Traveller " had some bitter words to say 
regarding Churchill. Mr. Forster in his " Life and 
Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith " has taken excep- 
tion not to Goldsmith's scorn, but to his application of 
it. " To Charles Hanbury Williams" he says, "but 
not to Charles Churchill, such epithets belong. . . . 
Never, that he might merely fawn upon power or 
trample upon weakness, had Churchill let loose his 
pen. There was not a form of mean pretence or ser- 
vile assumption, which he did not use it to denounce. 
Low, pimping politics he abhorred ; and that their 
worthless abettors, to whose exposure his works are so 
incessantly devoted, have not carried him into oblivion 
with themselves, argues something for the sound mo- 
rality and permanent truth expressed in his manly 
verse. By these the new poet was to profit ; as much 
by the faults which perished with the satirist, and 

1 BoswelVs Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, 
iii. 252. 



40 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

left the lesson of avoidance to his successors. In the 
interval since Pope's and Thomson's death, since Col- 
lins's faint, sweet song, since the silence of Young, of 
Akenside, and of Gray, no such easy, familiar, and 
vigorous verse as Churchill's had dwelt in the public 
ear. The less likely was it now to turn away, impa- 
tient or intolerant of 4 The Traveller.'" 



DEDICATION. 
TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH. 

Dear Sir, — I am sensible that the friendship be- 
tween us can acquire no new force from the cere- 
monies of a dedication ; and perhaps it demands an 
excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which 
you decline giving with your own. But as a part of 
this poem was formerly written to you from Switzer- 
land, the whole can now, with propriety, be only in- 
scribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many 
parts of it, when the reader understands that it is ad- 
dressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, 
has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an 
income of forty pounds a year. 

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of 
your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred 
office, where the harvest is great, and the laborers are 
but few ; while you have left the field of ambition, 
where the laborers are many, and the harvest not 
worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, 
— what from the refinement of the times, from differ- 
ent systems of criticism, and from the divisions of 
party, — that which pursues poetical fame is the wild- 
est. 

Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpol- 
ished nations ; but in a country verging to the extremes 
of refinement, painting and music come in for a share. 
As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious enter- 



42 DEDICATION. 

tainment, they at first rival poetry, and at length sup- 
plant her : they engross all that favor once shown to 
her, and, though but younger sisters, seize upon the 
elder's birthright. 

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the pow- 
erful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken 
efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms 
have we not heard of late in favor of blank verse and 
Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests and iambics, alliter- 
ative care and happy negligence ! Every absurdity 
has now a champion to defend it ; and as he is gener- 
ally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say ; 
for error is ever talkative. 

But there is an enemy to this art still more danger- 
ous — I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judg- 
ment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once 
infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in 
what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the 
tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after 
having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who 
has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, 
ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered rep- 
utation. Such readers generally admire some half- 
witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, 1 
having lost the character of a wise one. Him they 
"dignify with the name of poet : his tawdry lampoons 
are called satires ; his turbulence is said to be force, 
and his frenzy fire. 

What reception a poem may find, which has neither 
abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot 
tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. 

1 Churchill, at whom all this is aimed, died 4th November, 
1764, while the first edition of " The Traveller " was passing 
through the press. — Peter Cunningham. 



DEDICATION. 43 

Without espousing the cause of any party, I have at- 
tempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeav- 
ored to show, that there may be equal happiness in 
states that are differently governed from our own ; 
that every state has a particular principle of happiness, 
and that this principle in each may be carried to a 
mischievous excess. There are few can judge, better 
than yourself, how far these positions are illustrated 
in this poem. I am, dear Sir, 

Your most affectionate Brother, 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



THE TEAVELLER. 

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, — 
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po ; 
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor 
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door ; 
5 Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies, 
A weary waste expanding to the skies ; — 
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; 

1. There are few lines in English verse that compel a correct 
reading so certainly as this. It is almost impossible for the 
most heedless not to read it with a lingering emphasis on each 
word. The story is told by Boswell that at a meeting of the Lit- 
erary Club just after the publication of the poem somebody 
asked Goldsmith what he meant by the word u slow ; " did he 
mean tardiness of locomotion ? " Yes," replied Goldsmith, but 
Johnson caught him up, saying : " No sir, you did not mean 
tardiness of locomotion ; you meant that sluggishness of mind 
which comes upon a man in solitude." " Ah, that was what 
I meant," Goldsmith rejoined, accepting the more subtile inter- 
pretation. His answer gave rise to a suspicion that Johnson 
wrote the line as well as many others, but Johnson afterward in- 
dicated just what lines he did write, and they are named in the 
notes. Both the answers were correct; one does not exclude 
the other. The main thing to be noted is that the poet instinct- 
ively used the right word. 

2. Or . . .or — a Latin form, which has pretty much dropped 
out of English use. 

3. Peter Cunningham, one of Goldsmith's editors, writing in 
1853, says : " Carinthia [east of the Tyrol] was visited by Gold- 
smith in 1755 and still retains its character for inhospitality." 



THE TRAVELLER. 45 

Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, 
10 And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend : 
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; 

15 Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair ; 
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown 'd, 
Where all the ruddy family around 
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 

20 Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, 
Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good. 

But me, not destin'd such delights to share, 
My prime of life in wandering spent and care — 

25 Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue 

Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; 
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; — 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 

30 And find no spot of all the world my own. 
Ev'n now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, 

10. In his Citizen of the World, Goldsmith repeats this senti- 
ment in prose : " The farther I travel I feel the pain of sepa- 
ration with stronger force. Those ties that bind me to my na- 
tive country and you are still unbroken ; by every remove I only 
drag a greater length of chain." 

13-22. Goldsmith returns to this theme with more specific 
words in The Deserted Village, lines 149-152. 

24. The dashes used here and four lines below serve almost 
as marks of parenthesis, and enable the reader to perceive that 
a sentence has been suspended, and that it finds completion in 
lines 29, 30. 



46 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

I sit me down a pensive hour to spend ; 
And, plac'd on high above the storm's career, 
Look downward where an hundred realms appear : 
35 Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, 
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. 

When thus creation's charms around combine, 
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine ? 
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain 

40 That good which makes each humbler bosom vain ? 
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can, 
These little things are great to little man ; 
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind 
Exults in all the good of all mankind. 

45 Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor 
crown'd, 
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round, 
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale, 
Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale ; 
For me your tributary stores combine : 

so Creation's heir, the world — the world is mine ! 

As some lone miser, visiting his store, 
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er : 
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, 
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still : 

55 Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, 
Pleas'd with each good that Heaven to man sup- 
plies : 
41. School-taught pride ; i. e., the pride which he feels who 

has been taught in the school of the philosophers, especially of 

the Stoics. 

48. The swains, or peasants, bend at their work, which is that 

of tilling, or dressing the field. For the use of the word " dress " 

in such meaning, see Genesis ii. 15. 



THE TRAVELLER. 47 

Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall, 
To see the hoard of human bliss so small ; 
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find 
60 Some spot to real happiness consign 'd, 
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest, 
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest. 

But where to find that happiest spot below, 
Who can direct, when all pretend to know ? 
65 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own ; 
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, 
And his long nights of revelry and ease ; 
The naked negro, panting at the line, 

l?o Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, 
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam ; 
His first, best country ever is at home. 

75 And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 
And estimate the blessings which they share, 
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find 
An equal portion dealt to all mankind ; 
As different good, by art or nature given, 

, so To different nations makes their blessings even. 

Nature, a mother kind alike to all, 
Still grants her bliss at labor's earnest call ; 
With food as well the peasant is supplied 

57. Prevails, i. e., gets the better of one. Sorrow's fall is anti- 
thetical to " rising raptures " above. 

60. Real must be read as a word of two syllables. 

69. The phrase " crossing the line," of a ship sailing into the 
tropics, intimates what " the line " here is. 



48 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side ; 

85 And, though the rocky-crested summits frown, 
These rocks by custom turn to beds of down. 
From art more various are the blessings sent : 
Wealth, commerce, honor, liberty, content. 
Yet these each other's power so strong contest, 

90 That either seems destructive of the rest. 
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, 
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails. 
Hence every state, to one lov'd blessing prone, 
Conforms and models life to that alone : 

95 Each to the favorite happiness attends, 
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends ; 
Till, carried to excess in each domain, 
This favorite good begets peculiar pain. 

But let us try these truths with closer eyes, 
ioo And trace them through the prospect as it lies. 
Here for a while, my proper cares resign'd, 
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind ; 
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast, 
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast. 

105 Far to the right, where Apennine ascends, 

Bright as the summer, Italy extends ; 

Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side, 

Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ; 

While oft some temple's mouldering tops between 
no With venerable grandeur mark the scene. 

84. The contrast is between the precipitous side of Idra and 
the gently sloping side of Arno. 

87. The comparison is between Nature, 81-86, and Art, 87, 88. 
91, 92. These lines illustrate the exact meaning of line 90, 
98. The pain peculiar to itself. 



THE TRAVELLER. 49 

i 

Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, 

The sons of Italy were surely blest. 

Whatever fruits in different climes are found, 

That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground ; 

us Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, 

Whose bright succession decks the varied year ; 
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky 
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die : 
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, 

120 Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil ; 
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand 
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. 

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, 
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. 

125 In florid beauty groves and fields appear, 

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. 
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign : 
Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain ; 
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; 

130 And even in penance planning sins anew. 
All evils here contaminate the mind, 
That opulence departed leaves behind. 
For wealth was theirs ; not far remov'd the date, 
When commerce proudly flourished through the 
state. 

135 At her command the palace learnt to rise, 

119. Own, i. e., own the soil to be kindred, or of like kind with 
that which is native to them. 

124. Sensual derives its specific meaning here from sense in 
1. 123, and must not be taken in an evil significance. 

127. See The Deserted Village, 1. 74. 

129. Zealous, for religion. 

132. That opulence [when it has] departed. 



50 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Again the long-fallen column sought the skies ; 
The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n nature warm, 
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form ; 
Till, more unsteady thari the southern gale, 
140 Commerce on other shores display' d her sail ; 
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave, 
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave : 
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill, 
Its former strength was but plethoric ill. 

145 Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied 

By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride ; 

From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind 

An easy compensation seem to find. 

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd, 
150 The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ; 

Processions form'd for piety and love, 

A mistress or a saint in every grove. 

By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, 

The sports of children satisfy the child ; 
155 Each nobler aim, represt by long control, 

Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul ; 

While low delights, succeeding fast behind, 

In happier meanness occupy the mind. 

As in those domes where Caesars once bore sway, 

136. The ruins of one age furnish the building materials for 
another. 

139. It was the new enterprise of Prince Henry of Portugal 
and the Spanish sovereigns that wrested the sceptre of commerce 
from Venice and other Italian states. 

143. Skill — knowledge. 

144. In the Citizen of the World, Goldsmith says : " In short, 
the state resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, 
whose bulk is only a symptom of its wretchedness. Their for- 
mer opulence only rendered them more impotent." 

159. See The Deserted Village, 1. 319. 



THE TRAVELLER. 51 

igo Defac'd by time and tottering in decay, 
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed; 
And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. 

165 My soul, turn from them ; turn we to survey 
Where rougher climes a nobler race display ; 
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, 
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. 
No product here the barren hills afford, 

170 But man and steel, the soldier and his sword ; 
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, 
But winter lingering chills the lap of May ; 
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, 
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. 

175 Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, 
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. 
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though 

small, 
He sees his little lot the lot of all ; 
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head 

180 To shame the meanness of his humble shed ; , 
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal 
To make him loathe his vegetable meal ; 
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, 
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. 

185 Cheerful, at morn, he wakes from short repose, 
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes ; 
With patient angle trolls the finny deep, 
Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep ; 
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, 
184. Fits him [self] to the soil. 



52 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

190 And drags the struggling savage into day. 
At night returning, every labor sped, 
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed ; 
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys 
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze ; 

195 While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard, 
Displays her cleanly platter on the board ; 
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, 
With many a tale repays the nightly bed. 

Thus every good his native wilds impart, 
200 Imprints the patriot passion on his heart ; 

And ev'n those hills that round his mansion rise 
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms : 
205 And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more. 

Such are the charms to barren states assign'd ; 
210 Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd. 
Yet let them only share the praises due ; 
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few ; 
For every want that stimulates the breast 
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. 

190. This same use of " savage " for "savage beast "is fol- 
lowed by Goldsmith in the Citizen of the World, when he says : 
" Drive the reluctant savage into the toils." 

198. The nightly bed, i. e., the bed which each of such pilgrims 
may have for the night. A similar use appears in the petition, 
" Give us this day our daily bread." 

199, Thus every good [that] his native wilds impart. 



THE TRAVELLER. 53 

215 Whence from such lands each pleasing science 
flies, 

That first excites desire, and then supplies ; 

Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, 

To fill the languid pause with finer joy ; 

Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, 
220 Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame : 

Their level life is but a smouldering fire, 

Unquenck'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire ; 

Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer 

On some high festival of once a year, 
225 In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 

Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire. 

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow ; 
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low : 
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son, 

230 Unalter'd, unimprov'd, the manners run ; 
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart 
Fall blunted from each indurated heart. 
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast 
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest ; 

235 But all the gentler morals, such as play 

Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the 

way, — 
These, far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly, 
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. 

221. Level, not broken by variety. 

226. The subjunctive mood was more common in Goldsmith's 
day than now. Yet we say, " Wait till I go." 

232. The plural form in "fall" is due to the careful separa- 
tion of " love's "and "friendship's " dart ; i. e., the dart of love 
and the dart of friendship. 



54 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
240 1 turn ; and France displays her bright domain. 
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ! 
245 Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And f reshen'd from the wave the zephyr flew ; 
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, 
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill, 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
250 And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages : dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk'd beneath the burthen of threescore. 

255 So blest a life these thoughtless realms display; 
Thus idly busy rolls their world away. 
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, 
For honor forms the social temper here : 
Honor, that praise which real merit gains, 

260 Or even imaginary worth obtains, 

Here passes current ; paid from hand to hand, 
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land ; 
From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays, 
And all are taught an avarice of praise. 

265 They please, are pleas'd ; they give to get esteem, 
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. 

243. For the actual basis of this reminiscence, see the bio- 
graphic sketch. 

265, 266. This as well as the passage it sums up must be taken 
as an Englishman's judgment, though that of a very acute Eng- 
lishman. 



THE TRAVELLER. 55 

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, 
It gives their follies also room to rise ; 
For praise too dearly lov'cl, or warmly sought, 

270 Enfeebles all internal strength of thought : 
And the weak soul, within itself unblest, 
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. 
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, 
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart ; 

275 Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, 

And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace ; 
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, 
To boast one splendid banquet once a year : 
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws, 

280 Nor weighs the solid worth of self -applause. 

To men of other minds my fancy flies, 
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land, 

285 And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride. 
Onward methinks, and diligently slow, 
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow, 
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, 

290 Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile : 
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 

295 The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, — 
A new creation rescued from his reign. 

273. The origin of tawdry, which the dictionary will give, is 
most curious. 



56 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil 
Impels the native to repeated toil, 
Industrious habits in each bosom reign, 

300 And industry begets a love of gain. 

Hence all the good from opulence that springs, 
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings, 
Are here display'd. Their much lov'd wealth im- 
parts 
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts ; 

305 But, view them closer, craft and fraud appear ; 
Even liberty itself is barter'd here. 
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies ; 
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys. 
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves, 

310 Here wretches seek dishonorable graves, 
And calmly bent, to servitude conform, 
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm. 

Heavens ! how unlike their Belgic sires of old — 
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold ; 
315 War in each breast, and freedom on each brow ; 
How much unlike the sons of Britain now ! 

Fir'd at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, 
And flies where Britain courts the western spring ; 
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, 

306. Referring possibly to the custom which permitted par- 
ents to sell their children's labor for a term of years. 

309. In the Citizen of the World, exactly the same words re- 
cur : " A nation once famous for setting the world an example 
of freedom is now become a land of tyrants and a den of slaves." 

318. So in the Citizen of the World, in praise of Britain: " Yet 
from the vernal softness of the air, the verdure of the fields, the 
transparency of the streams, and the beauty of the women; 



THE TRAVELLER. 57 

320 And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspes glide. 
There all around the gentlest breezes stray, 
There gentle music melts on every spray ; 
Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd : 
Extremes are only in the master's mind ! 

325 Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state, 
With daring aims irregularly great ; 
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 
I see the lords of human kind pass by ; 
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, 

330 By forms unf ashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand, 
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 
True to imagin'd right, above control ; 
While even the peasant boasts these rights to 

scan, 
And learns to venerate himself as man. 

335 Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd 
here, 

Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear ; 

Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy ; 

But, foster'd even by freedom, ills annoy. 

That independence Britons prize too high 
340 Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie ; 

The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, 

All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown. 

Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held, 

Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd ; 

here love might sport among painted lawns and warbling 1 
groves, and carol upon gales wafting at once both fragrance and 
harmony." 

330. Mr. Rolfe felicitously calls attention to a line in Tenny- 
son's Locksley Hall : — 

" Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest nature's rule." 



58 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

345 Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar, 
Represt ambition struggles round her shore ; 
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels 
Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels. 

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay, 

350 As duty, love, and honor fail to sway, 

Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, 
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. 
Hence all obedience bows to these alone, 
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown ; 

355 Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, 
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, 
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, 
Where kings have toil'd and poets wrote for fame, 
One sink of level avarice shall lie, 

360 And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonor'd die. 

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, 
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great : 
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, 
Far from my bosom drive the low desire ; 
365 And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel ; 
Thou transitory flower, alike undone 

345. " It is extremely difficult to induce a number of free beings 
to co-operate for their mutual benefits : every possible advantage 
will necessarily be sought, and every attempt to procure it must 
be attended with a new fermentation." — Citizen of the World. 

357. Stems, i. e., families. 

362. In the Preface to his History of England, Goldsmith again 
says : " In the things I have hitherto written, I have neither 
allured the vanity of the great by flattery, nor satisfied the ma- 
lignity of the vulgar by scandal ; but have endeavoured to get 
an honest reputation by liberal pursuits." 



THE TRAVELLER. 59 

By proud contempt, or favor's fostering sun, 
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure ! 

370 1 only would repress them to secure : 
For just exj>erience tells, in every soil, 
That those who think must govern those that toil; 
And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach, 
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each. 

375 Hence, should one order disproportion^ grow, 
Its double weight must ruin all below. 

Oh, then how blind to all that truth requires, 
Who think it freedom when a part aspires ! 
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms, 

380 Except when fast approaching danger warms : 
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne, 
Contracting regal power to stretch their own ; 
When I behold a factious band agree 
To call it freedom when themselves are free; 

385 Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law ; 
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam, 
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home ; 

382. " It is not yet decided in politics, whether the diminution 
of kingly power in England tends to increase the happiness or 
freedom of the people. For my own part, from seeing the bad 
effects of the tyranny of the great in those republican states 
that pretend to be free, I cannot help wishing that our monarchs 
may still be allowed to enjoy the power of controlling the en- 
croachments of the great at home." — Preface to History of 
England. 

" It is the interest of the great to diminish kingly power as 
much as possible." — Vicar of Wakefield. 

386. " What they may then expect may be seen by turning our 
eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern the 
poor, and the rich govern the law." — Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xix. 



60 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start, 
390 Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart ; 
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown, 
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. 

Yes, Brother, curse with me that baleful hour, 
When first ambition struck at regal power; 

395 And thus polluting honor in its source, 

Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. 
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore, 
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore ? 
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, 

400 Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste ; 
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, 
Lead stern depopulation in her train, 
And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose, 
In barren, solitary pomp repose ? 

405 Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call, 
The smiling, long frequented village fall ? 
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd, 
The modest matron, and the blushing maid, 
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train, 

410 To traverse climes beyond the western main ; 
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, 
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound ? 

396. Gave [to] wealth. Here, in grammatical phrase, 
" wealth " is the indirect, and " to sway," etc., the direct object. 

397. The thought in the passage which follows is repeated in 
The Deserted Village. 

411. " Oh ! let me fly a land that spurns the brave, 

Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave." 

Threnodia Augustalis, Goldsmith. 

412. This pronunciation is still common in England and com- 
mends itself as more rotund and sonorous than our sharper 
Niag'ara. 



THE TRAVELLER. 61 

Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays 
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous 
ways ; 

415 Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim ; 
There, while above the giddy tempest flies, 
And all around distressful yells arise, 
The pensive exile, bending with his woe, 

420 To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, 

Casts a long look where England's glories shine, 
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine. 

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
That bliss which only centres in the mind : 

425 Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose, 
To seek a good each government bestows ? 
In every government, though terrors reign, 
Though tj^rant kings or tyrant laws restrain, 
How small, of all that human hearts endure, 

430 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure ! 
Still to ourselves in every place consign 'd, 
Our own felicity we make or find : 
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, 
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. 

435 The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, 

Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel, 

420. One of Dr. Johnson's lines. 

427. "Every mind seems capable of entertaining a certain 
quantity of happiness, which no constitutions can increase, no 
circumstances alter, and entirely independent on fortune." — 
Citizen of the World. 

436. George and Luke Dosa were two brothers who headed an 
unsuccessful revolt against the Hungarian nobles at the opening 
of the sixteenth century ; and George (not Luke) underwent the 
torture of the red-hot iron-crown, as a punishment for allowing 



62 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

To men remote from power but rarely known, 
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. 

himself to be proclaimed king of Hungary, 1513, by the rebel- 
lious peasants. — See Biographie Universelle, xi. 604. The two 
brothers belonged to one of the native races of Transylvania, 
called Szecklers or Zecklers. — Forster's Goldsmith, i. 395, 
(ed. 1854.) — Cunningham. 

Robert Frangois Damiens was put to death with revolting 
barbarity, in the year 1757, for an attempt to assassinate Louis 
XV. — Cunningham. 

438. Dr. Johnson wrote the last ten lines, save lines 435, 436. 



EDWIN AND ANGELINA: 

A BALLAD. 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

One of Goldsmith's friends was Thomas Percy, ed- 
itor and sometimes author of a famous book, " Reliques 
of Ancient English Poetry." The book is notable as 
marking a revival in taste, for Bishop Percy pointed 
out the charm and rude beauty which lay in native, 
spontaneous poetry, despised by English readers as 
having nothing in common with what was called elo- 
quent literature. But Bishop Percy did not always 
print the old ballads just as he heard them ; he could 
not quite trust them to people, and therefore touched 
them up now and then, or wrote parts to fill out, and 
sometimes tried his hand at a new one in imitation of 
the old. Goldsmith and he had many talks on bal- 
lads, and as a consequence Goldsmith wrote and read 
to him the ballad here printed. It fell into the hands 
of the Countess of Northumberland whose husband 
was Percy's patron, and in 1764, shortly after it was 
written, it was privately printed, " for the amuse- 
ment " as the title-page reads, " of the Countess of 
Northumberland." Two years later Goldsmith intro- 
duced it into the " Vicar of Wakefield " under the 
title, " The Hermit." Mr. Forster, who examined the 
rare leaflet containing the poem as first printed, re- 
marks : " It has a value independent of its rarity, in 



64 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

its illustration of Goldsmith's habit of elaboration and 
painstaking in the correction of his verse. By com- 
paring it with what was afterwards published, we per- 
ceive that even the gentle opening line has been an 
afterthought ; that four stanzas have been rewritten ; 
and that the two which originally stood last have 
been removed altogether. These, for their simple 
beauty of expression, it is worth while here to pre- 
serve. The action of the poem having closed without 
them, they were on better consideration rejected ; and 
young writers should meditate such lessons. Posterity 
has always too much upon its hands to attend to what 
is irrelevant or needless ; and none so well as Gold- 
smith seems to have known that the writer who would 
hope to live must live by the perfection of his style, 
and by the cherished and careful beauty of unsuper- 
fluous writing. 

" Here amidst sylvan bowers we '11 rove, 
From lawn to woodland stray ; 
Blest as the songsters of the grove 
And innocent as they. 

" To all that want, and all that wail, \ 
Our pity shall be given ; 
And when this life of love shall fail, 
' We '11 love again in heaven.' " 

A writer in the newspapers charged Goldsmith with 
having copied his ballad from one of Percy's, and the 
poet, in a letter to the printer of the " St. James's 
Gazette," answered the charge as follows : 

"Another correspondent of yours accuses me of 
having taken a ballad, I published some time ago, 
from one : by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think 
1 The Friar of Orders Gray. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 65 

there is any great resemblance between the two pieces 
in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from 
mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years ago ; and he 
(as we both considered these things as trifles at best) 
told me with his usual good humor, the next time I 
saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the 
fragments of Shakespeare into a ballad of his own. 
He then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, 
and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as 
these are scarcely worth printing ; and, were it not 
for the busy disposition of some of your correspond- 
ents, the public should never have known that he 
owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged 
to his friendship and learning for communications of 
a much more important nature." 



EDWIN AND ANGELINA. 

" Tukn, gentle Hermit of the dale, 
And guide my lonely way, 
To where yon taper cheers the vale 
With hospitable ray. 

5 " For here forlorn and lost I tread, 
With fainting steps and slow ; 
Where wilds, immeasurably spread, 
Seem lengthening as I go." 

" Forbear, my son," the Hermit cries, 
10 " To tempt the dangerous gloom ; 

For yonder faithless phantom flies 
To lure thee to thy doom. 

" Here to the houseless child of want 
My door is open still ; 
15 And though my portion is but scant, 
I give it with good will. 

" Then turn to-night, and freely share 
Whate'er my cell bestows ; 
My rushy couch and frugal fare, 
20 My blessing and repose. 

" No flocks that range the valley free 
To slaughter I condemn ; 
11. The taper which the stranger saw was a will o' the wisp. 



EDWIN AND ANGELINA. 67 

Taught by that Power that pities me, 
I learn to pity them ; 

25 " But from the mountain's grassy side 
A guiltless feast I bring ; 
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied, 
And water from the spring. 

" Then, pilgrim, turn, thy cares forego ; 
30 All earth-born cares are wrong : 

Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long." 

Soft as the dew from heaven descends 
His gentle accents fell : 
35 The modest stranger lowly bends 
And follows to the cell. 

Far in a wilderness obscure 
The lonely mansion lay ; 
A refuge to the neighboring poor, 
40 And strangers led astray. 

No stores beneath its humble thatch 

tfcequir'd a master's care : 
The wicket, opening with a latch, 

Receiv'd the harmless pair. 

45 And now, when busy crowds retire, 
To take their evening rest, 
The Hermit trimm'd his little fire, 
And cheer'd his pensive guest ; 

31. " The running brook, the herbs of the field, can amply sat- 
isfy nature ; man wants but little, nor that little long." — The Citi- 
zen of the World, Goldsmith. 



68 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

And spread his vegetable store, 
50 And gayly prest and smil'd ; 

And, skill'd in legendary lore, 
The lingering hours beguil'd. 

Around, in sympathetic mirth, 
Its tricks the kitten tries ; 
65 The cricket chirrups in the hearth ; 
The crackling fagot flies. 

But nothing could a charm impart 

To soothe the stranger's woe ; 
For grief was heavy at his heart, 
60 And tears began to flow. 

His rising cares the Hermit spied, 
With answering care opprest : 
" And whence, unhappy youth," he cried, 
" The sorrows of thy breast ? 

65 " From better habitations spurn'd, 
Reluctant dost thou rove ? 
Or grieve for friendship unreturn'd, 
Or unregarded love ? 

" Alas ! the joys that fortune brings 
70 Are trifling, and decay : 

And those who prize the paltry things, 
More trifling still than they. 

" And what is friendship but a name, 
A charm that lulls to sleep ; 
75 A shade that follows wealth or fame, 
But leaves the wretch to weep ? 



EDWIN AND ANGELINA. 69 

" And love is still an emptier sound. 
The modern fair-one's jest ; 
On earth unseen, or only found 
so To warm the turtle's nest. 

" For shame, fond youth ! thy sorrows hush, 
And spurn the sex," he said ; 
But, while he spoke, a rising blush 
His lovelorn guest betray'd. 

85 Surpris'd, he sees new beauties rise, 
Swift mantling to the view ; 
Like colors o'er the morning skies, 
As bright, as transient too. 

The bashful look, the rising breast, 
90 Alternate spread alarms : 

The lovely stranger stands confest 
A maid in all her charms. 

" And, ah ! forgive a stranger rude, 
A wretch forlorn," she cried ; 
95 " Whose feet unhallow'd thus intrude 
Where heaven and you reside. ) 

" But let a maid thy pity share, 

Whom love has taught to stray ; 
Who seeks for rest, but finds despair 
ioo Companion of her way. 

" My father liv'd beside the Tyne, 
A wealthy lord was he, 
And all his wealth was mark'd as mine ; 
He had but only me. 

80. That is, the turtle-dove's. 



70 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

105 " To win me from Ms tender arms, 
Unnumber'd suitors came ; 
Who prais'd me for imputed charms, 
And felt, or feign'd, a flame. 

" Each hour a mercenary crowd 
no With richest proffers strove : 

Among the rest young Edwin bow'd, 
But never talk'd of love. 

" In humble, simplest habit clad, 
No wealth or power had he ; 
115 Wisdom and worth were all he had, 
But these were all to me. 

" And when beside me in the dale 
He caroll'd lays of love, 
His breath lent fragrance to the gale, 
120 And music to the grove. 

" The blossom opening to the day, 
The dews of heaven refin'd, 
Could not of purity display 
To emulate his mind. 

125 " The dew, the blossom on the tree, 
With charms inconstant shine ; 
Their charms were his, but, woe to me, 
Their constancy was mine. 

" For still I tried each fickle art, 
130 Importunate and vain ; 

And while his passion touch'd my heart, 
I triumph'd in his pain : 
113. We still speak of a riding-habit. 



EDWIN AND ANGELINA. 71 

" Till, quite dejected with my scorn, 
He left me to my pride ; 
135 And sought a solitude forlorn, 
In secret, where he died. 

" But mine the sorrow, mine the fault, 
And well my life shall pay ; 
I '11 seek the solitude he sought, 
wo And stretch me where he lay. 

" And there forlorn, despairing, hid, 
I '11 lay me down and die ; 
'T was so for me that Edwin did, 
And so for him will I." 

145 " Forbid it, Heaven ! " the Hermit cried, 
And clasp'd her to his breast : 
The wondering fair one turn'd to chide, — 
'T was Edwin's self that prest. 

" Turn, Angelina, ever dear, 
150 My charmer, turn to see 

Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here, 
Restor'd to love and thee. 

44 Thus let me hold thee to my heart, 
And every care resign : 
155 And shall we never, never part, 
My life — my all that's mine? 

44 No, never from this hour to part, 
We '11 live and love so true : 
The sigh that rends thy constant heart 
wo Shall break thy Edwin's too." 



EETALIATION. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

After Goldsmith's death the lines entitled " Retali- 
ation " were published. They were incomplete, and 
they appear to have been written at different times. 
Indeed it was averred that the poem as originally de- 
signed by the poet came greatly to exceed his original 
intention. But against what was the poem in retalia- 
tion ? It will be remembered that his associates never 
could quite reconcile Goldsmith's writings, especially 
his great poems, with his awkward, blundering ways. 
They seem to have been tempted to measure the poet 
by the man, instead of the man by the poet. At any 
rate they could not resist trying their wit on him, and 
Garrick, the great actor, in particular, was persistent 
in his rather ill-mannered treatment of Goldsmith, 
and here is an account in Garrick's handwriting of the 
origin of the poem : — 

" As the cause of writing the following printed 
poem called Retaliation, has not yet been fully ex- 
plained, a person concerned in the business begs leave 
to give the following just and minute account of the 
whole affair. 

"At a meeting 1 of a company of gentlemen, who 
were well known to each other, and diverting them- 
selves, among many other things, with the peculiar 
oddities of Dr. Goldsmith, who never would allow a 

1 At the St. James's Coffee-House in St. James's Street. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 73 

superior in any art, from writing poetry down to dan- 
cing a hornpipe, the Doctor with great eagerness in- 
sisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with Mr. 
Garrick, and each of them was to write the other's 
epitaph. Mr. Garrick immediately said that his epi- 
taph was finished, and spoke the following distich 
extempore : — 

Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness call'd Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talk'd like poor Poll. 

Goldsmith, upon the company's laughing very heart- 
ily, grew very thoughtful, and either would not, or 
could not, write any thing at that time ; however, he 
went to work, and some weeks after produced the 
following printed poem called Retaliation, which has 
been much admired, and gone through several edi- 
tions. The publick in general have been mistaken in 
imagining that this poem was written in anger by the 
Doctor; it was just the contrary." 

Whoever reads the poem will see that if Gold- 
smith set out to pay up old scores he ended by draw- 
ing portraits which were full of fine characterization 
and noble lines. It belongs thus in the class which 
includes Leiffh Hunt's " Feast of the Poets " and 



i & 



Lowell's " A Fable for Critics. 



•>■> 



RETALIATION. 

Of old, when Scarron his companions invited, 
Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was 

united ; 
If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish, 
Let each guest bring himself, and he brings the 
best dish : 
5 Our dean shall be venison, just fresh from the 
plains ; 
Our Burke shall be tongue, with the garnish of 

brains ; 
Our Will shall be wildfowl, of excellent flavor, 
And Dick with his pepper shall heighten the sa- 
vor : 
Our Cumberland's sweetbread its place shall ob- 
tain, 
10 And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain ; 
Our Garrick 's a salad ; for in him we see 

1. A French comic writer, who died a century or more before 
this poem was written. 

3. The master of the St. James's Coffee-house, where Gold- 
smith, and the friends he has characterized in this poem occa- 
sionally dined. 

5. Thomas Barnard, Dean of Deny, in Ireland. 

6. Edmund Burke. 

7. William Burke, late secretary to General Conway, and mem- 
ber for Bedwin, a kinsman of Edmund. 

8. Richard Burke, a younger brother of Edmund. 

9. Richard Cumberland, an unimportant man of letters. 

10. John Douglas, canon of Windsor, afterward Bishop of Car- 
lisle, and later still of Salisbury. 



RETALIATION. 75 

Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree : 
To make out the dinner, full certain I am 
That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb ; 

15 That Hickey 's a capon, and, by the same rule, 
Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool. 
At a dinner so various, at such a repast, 
Who 'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last? 
Here, waiter, more wine ! let me sit while I 'm able, 

20 Till all my companions sink under the table ; 
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head, 
Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead. 

Here lies the good dean, reunited to earth, 
Who mixt reason with pleasure, and wisdom with 
mirth : 
25 If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt, 
At least in six weeks I could not find 'em out ; 
Yet some have declar'd, and it can't be denied 'em, 
That slyboots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em. 

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was 
such, 
30 We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; 
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his 

throat 
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a 
vote ; 

14. John Ridge, a member of the Irish Bar. 

15. Thomas Hickey, an eminent attorney, whose hospitality and 
good hnmor acquired him in his club the title of " honest Tom 
Hickey." 

23. Vide page 74. 

34. Thomas Townshend, a member of Parliament. 



76 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

35 Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refin- 
ing. 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of 

dining : 
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit ; 
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; 
For a patriot too cool ; for a drudge disobedient ; 
40 And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. 
In short, 't was his fate, unemploy'd or in place, sir, 
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor. 

Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint, 
While the owner ne'er knew half the good that 
was in 't ; 
43 The pupil of impulse, it forc'd him along, 
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong. 
Still aiming at honor, yet fearing to roam, 
The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home : 
Would you ask for his merits ? alas ! he had none ; 
so What was good was spontaneous, his faults were 
his own. 

Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh 

at ; 
Alas that such frolic should now be so quiet ! 
What spirits were his ! what wit and what whim, 
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb ; 
55 Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball, 
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all ! 
In short so provoking a devil was Dick, 
That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old 

Nick; 

54. As Richard Burke broke a leg not long before, this was no 
joke to him. 



60 



RETALIATION. 77 

But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein, 
As often we wish'd to have Dick back again. 



Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, 
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts ; 
A flattering painter, who made it his care 
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are. 

65 His gallants are all faultless, his women divine, 
And comedy wonders at being so fine ; 
Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out, 
Or rather like tragedy giving a rout. 
His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd 

70 Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud ; 
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone, 
Adopting his portraits, are pleas'd with their own. 
Say, where has our poet this malady caught, 
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault ? 

75 Say, was it that vainly directing his view 
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few, 
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf, 
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself ? 

Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax, 
so The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks : 
Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines, 
Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant re- 
clines : 
When satire and censure encircled his throne, 
I fear'd for your safety, I fear'd for my own ; 
85 But now he is gone, and we want a detector, 
Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lec- 
ture ; 

86. Our forefathers had no difficulty in making this line rhyme 
with the previous. The Rev. Dr. William Dodd was a fashion- 



78 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style ; 
Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile ; 
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross 

over 
90 No countryman living their tricks to discover ; 
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark, 
And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the 

dark. 

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, 

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
95 As an actor, conf est without rival to shine ; 

As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 

Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 

The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 

Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread, 
ioo And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. 

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 

'T was only that when he was off, he was acting. 

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 

He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day : 
105 Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 

If they were not his own by finessing and trick. 

He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack ; 

For he knew, when he pleas'd, he could whistle 
them back. 

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 
no And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; 

able preacher, but turned out to be a scamp. William Kenrick 
was a bitter critic of Goldsmith, and a lecturer on Shakespeare. 

87. James Macpherson, who persuaded a good many otherwise 
acute men that the poems he wrote were the work of an ancient 
bard named Ossian. 

89. Inferior writers whose errors Dr. Douglas had exposed. 



RETALIATION. 79 

Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, 
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 
us Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you 

gave! 
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you 

rais'd, 
While he was be-Roscius'd and you were beprais'd ! 
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 
120 To act as an angel, and mix with the skies. 
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill, 
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ; 
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with 

love, 
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. 

125 Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant crea- 
ture, 

And slander itself must allow him good nature ; 

He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, 

Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. 

Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser : 
130 1 answer, No, no, for he always was wiser. 

Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat ? 

His very worst foe can't accuse him of that. 

Perhaps he confided in men as they go, 

And so was too foolishly honest ? Ah, no ! 
135 Then what was his failing ? come, tell it, and burn 
ye: 

He was — could he help it ? — a special attorney. 

115. Dramatists and dramatic critics. 

124. Beaumont and Ben Jonson stood just below Shakespeare. 
Kelly would scarcely be admitted to their company. 



80 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
140 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland : 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
When they judg'd without skill, he was still hard 
of hearing : 
145 When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, 
and stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. 
By flattery unspoil'd — 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Here Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can, 

Though he merrily liv'd, he is now a grave man : 
150 Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun ! 

Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun ; 

Whose temper was generous, open, sincere ; 

A stranger to flattery, a stranger to fear ; 

Who scatter'd around wit and humor at will ; 
155 Whose daily bon mots half a column might fill : 

A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free, 

A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he. 

146. Sir Joshua was excessively deaf and obliged to use an ear 
trumpet. 

147. Here Goldsmith in his last sickness laid down his pen. 

148. The lines that follow were found later and not printed until 
after the fourth edition of the poem had been published. They 
appear to have been a draft intended to be worked in at some 
point, no one can say where. Whitefoord was a wine merchant 
and dabster in letters. 



RETALIATION. 81 

What pity, alas ! that so liberal a mind 
Should so long be to newspaper essays confin'd ! 
i6o Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar, 
Yet content " if the table he set in a roar ; " 
Whose talents to fill any station were fit, 
Yet happy if Woodfall confess'd him a wit. 

Ye newspaper witlings ! ye pert scribbling folks ! 
165 Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes ; 
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come, 
Still follow your master, and visit his tomb : 
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine, 
And copious libations bestow on his shrine ; 
i7o Then strew all around it (you can do no less) 

Cross readings, ship news, and mistakes of the 
press. 

Merry Whitefoord, farewell ! for thy sake I admit 
That a Scot may have humor, I had almost said 

wit ; 
This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse, 
175 " Thou best humor'd man with the worst humor'd 



muse." 



163. H. S. Woodfall was editor of the Public Advertiser. 
171. Whitefoord had frequently indulged the town with humor- 
ous pieces under those titles in the Public Advertiser. 



AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD 

DOG. 

This poem was printed first in " The Vicar of Wakefield." 

Good people all, of every sort, 

Give ear unto my song ; 
And if you find it wondrous short, 

It cannot hold you long. 

5 In Islington there was a man 

Of whom the world might say, 
That still a godly race he ran, 
Whene'er he went to pray. 

A kind and gentle heart he had, 
10 To comfort friends and foes : 
The naked every day he clad, 
When he put on his clothes. 

And in that town a dog was found, 
As many dogs there be, 
15 Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
And curs of low degree. 

This dog and man at first were friends ; 

But when a pique began, 
The dog, to gain his private ends, 
20 Went mad, and bit the man. 

5 The name of this place, the residence of the famous Tom, is 
pronounced Iz'lington. 



ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. 

Around from all the neighboring streets 
The wondering people ran, 

And swore the dog had lost his wits, 
To bite so good a man. 

25 The wound it seem'd both sore and sad 
To every Christian eye ; 
And while they swore the dog was mad, 
They swore the man would die. 



30 



But soon a wonder came to light, 
That show'd the rogues they lied ; 

The man recover'd of the bite ; 
The dog it was that died. 



AN ELEGY ON THE GLOEY OF HEE SEX, 
MES. MAEY BLAIZE. 

Good people all, with one accord, 

Lament for Madam Blaize, 
Who never wanted a good word — - 

From those who spoke her praise. 

5 The needy seldom pass'd her door, 
And always found her kind : 
She freely lent to all the poor — 
Who left a pledge behind. 

She strove the neighborhood to please, 
10 With manners wondrous winning ; 
And never follow'd wicked ways — 
Unless when she was sinning. 

At church, in silks and satins new, 
With hoop of monstrous size, 
15 She never slumber'd in her pew — 
But when she shut her eyes. 

Her love was sought, I do aver, 
By twenty beaux and more ; 
The king himself has follow'd her — 
20 When she has walk'd before. 

But now her wealth and finery fled, 
Her hangers-on cut short all ; 



ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX. 85 

The doctors found, when she was dead — 
Her last disorder mortal. 

25 Let us lament in sorrow sore ; 

For Kent-street well may say, 
That had she liv'd a twelvemonth more — 
She had not died to-day. 



THE CLOWN'S EEPLY. 

John Trott was desir'd by two witty peers 

To tell them the reason whv asses had ears. 

" An 't please you," quoth John, u I 'm not given to 

letters, 
Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters : 
5 Howe'er, from this time I shall ne'er see your 

graces, — 
As I hope to be sav'd ! — without thinking on 

asses." 



STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC. 

Amidst the clamor of exulting joys, 

Which triumph forces from the patriot heart, 

Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice, 

And quells the raptures which from pleasures 
start. 

5 O Wolfe ! to thee a streaming flood of woe, 

Sighing we pay, and think e'en conquest dear ; 
Quebec in vain shall teach our breast to glow, 

Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear. 

Alive the foe thy dreadful vigor fled, 
10 And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes : 
Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead ! 
Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise. 



A DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S BED- 
CHAMBER. 

This is interesting as the first form of some verses which later 
were introduced with changes into The Deserted Village. 

Where the Red Lion, staring o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black cham- 
pagne, 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane ; 

5 There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug. 
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray, 
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay ; 
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread ; 

10 The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ; 
The royal game of goose was there in view, 
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ; 
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place, 
And brave prince William show'd his lampblack 
face. 

15 The morn was cold ; he views with keen desire 
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire : 
With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd, 
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney 

board ; 
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 

20 A cap by night, — a stocking all the day ! 

14. William, Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, 1765. 



fefet 



FAMILIAE QUOTATIONS FROM GOLD- 
SMITH. 

It is doubtful if any English poet, save Gray, 
has been quoted so abundantly in proportion to the 
amount he has written, as Goldsmith. Almost eveiy 
stanza of Gray's " Elegy " is a familiar quotation, and 
the two poems " The Deserted Village " and " The 
Traveller " surely stand next in familiarity. In order 
to show this emphatically, permission has been ob- 
tained from Mr. John Bartlett, compiler of that most 
satisfactory work " Familiar Quotations : a Collection 
of Passages, Phrases and Proverbs traced to their 
Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature," to re- 
print here the pages of his book covering the poems 
contained in this number of the " Riverside Litera- 
ture Series." 

THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 

i Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain. 

13 The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade, 
For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 

29 The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love. 

si 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade : 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made : 



90 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied. 

6i His best companions, innocence and health ; 
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 

99 How blest is he who crowns in shades like these 
A youth of labor with an age of ease ! 

no While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past. 

i2i The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. 

141 A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 

157 Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 

Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won. 

i6i Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
His pity gave ere charity began. 
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side. 

167 And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

179 Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 

183 Even children follow'd, with endearing wile, 

And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 91 

189 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

loo Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee, 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. 
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
The village all declar'd how much he knew ; 
'T was certain he could write, and cipher too. 

211 In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 

For even though vanquished he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ; 
And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

223 Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound, 
And news much older than their ale went round. 

227 The whitewash' d wall, the nicely sanded floor, 
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door ; 
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay, 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day. 



232 



2 The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose. 



263 To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 

263 And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
The heart, distrusting, ask if this be joy. 



92 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

329 Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. 

343 Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 

ss3 In all the silent manliness of grief. 

385 O Luxury ! thou curst by Heaven's decree ! 

413 Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, 

That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so. 

THE TRAVELLER. 

i Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, — 
Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po. 

7 Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; 
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

22 And learn the luxury of doing good. 

26 Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view. 

42 These little things are great to little man. 

so Creation's heir, the world — the world is mine ! 

re Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam ; 
His first, best country ever is at home. 

9i Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, 
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 93 

126 Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. 

i3r The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n nature warm, 
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form. 

153 By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, 
The sports of children satisfy the child. 

172 But winter lingering chills the lap of May. 

i8s Cheerful, at morn, he wakes from short repose, 
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes. 

2or So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more. 

25i Alike all ages : dames of ancient days 

Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk d beneath the burthen of threescore. 

2M They please, are pleas'd ; they give to get esteem, 
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. 

282 Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies. 
Methinks her patient sons before me stand, 
Where the broad ocean leans against the land. 

327 Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 
I see the lords of human kind pass by. 

35G The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms. 

371 For just experience tells, in every soil, 

That those who think must govern those that toil. 

see Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law. 



94 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

409 Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train. 
To traverse climes beyond the western main ; 
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, 
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound. 

423 Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
That bliss which only centres in the mind. 

436 Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel. 



RETALIATION. 

ii Our Garrick 's a salad ; for in him we see 
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree ! 

24 Who mixt reason with pleasure, and wisdom with 
mirth : 
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt. 

31 Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, 

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his 
throat 

To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote ; 

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 

And thought of convincing while they thought of din- 
ing : 

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit ; 

Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit. 

46 His conduct still right, with his argument wrong. 

63 A flattering painter, who made it his care 

To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are. 

a*? Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 95 

9R As a wit, if not first, in the very first line. 

101 On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 
'T was only that when he was off he was acting. 

lor He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack ; 

For he knew, when he pleas'd, he could whistle them 
back. 

ii2 Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 

145 When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and 
stuff, 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. 

Postscript. 

ir5 "Thou best humor'd man, with the worst humor'd 
Muse." 



AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. 

A kind and gentle heart he had, 
io To comfort friends and foes : 
The naked every day he clad, 
When he put on his clothes. 

And in that town a dog was found, 
As many dogs there be, 
15 Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
And curs of low degree. 

The dog, to gain his private ends, 
20 Went mad, and bit the man. 

The man recover'd of the bite ; 
The dog it was that died. 



96 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE. 

i Good people all, with one accord,. 
Lament for Madam Blaize, 
Who never wanted a good word — 
From those who spoke her praise. 

The king himself has f ollow'd her — 
20 When she has walk'd before. 



DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER. 

A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, 



20 



A cap by night, — a stocking all the day ! 



LBAg'33 



C^e iSitoergiDe ilttcrature ^>erte& 

[A list of the first fifty numbers is given on the next page.] 
51, 52. Washington Irving : Essays from the Sketch Book. 

[51.] Rip Van Winkle and other American Essays. [52.] The Voyage and other 
English Essays. In two parts.f 

53. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Edited by W. J. Bolfe. With 

copious notes and numerous illustrations. (Double Number, 30 cents. Also, in 
Rolfe's Students'' Series, cloth, to Teachers, 03 cents.) 

54. Bryant's Sella, Thanatopsis, and Other Poems. 

55. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Edited for School Use 

by Samuel Thurber, Master in the Girls' High School, Boston.** * 

56. Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, and the Oration 

on Adams and Jefferson. 

57. Dickens's Christmas Carol. With Notes and a Biography. 

58. Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth. [Nos. 57 and 58 also in one 

volume, linen covers, 40 cents.] 

59. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading.** * 

60. 61. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. In two parts. % 

62. John Fiske's War of Independence. With Maps and a Bio- 

graphical Sketch. (Double Number, 30 cents ; linen covers, 40 cents.) 

63. Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, and Other Poems* 

64. 65, 66. Tales from Shakespeare. Edited by Charles and 

Mart Lamb. In three parts. 

[The three parts also in one volume, linen covers, 50 cents.] • 

67. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar* 

68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, The Traveller, and Other 

Poems. 

69. Hawthorne's Old Manse, and A Few Mosses* 

70. Milton's L'Allegro, II Penseroso, and Other Poems. 

* 11 and 63 also in one volume, linrn covers, 40 cents ; likewise 40 and 69 ; and 55 and 
67. ** Also bound in linen covers, 25 cents. $ Also in one volume, linen covers, 40 

EXTRA NUMBERS. 
A. American Authors and their Birthdays. Programmes and 

Suggestions for the Celebration of the Birthdays of Authors. By A. S. Roe. 

J5 Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Twenty American 

Authors. 
C A Longfellow Night. A Short Sketch of the Poet's Life, with 

songs and recitations from his works. For the Use of Catholic Schools and 

Catholic Literary Societies. By Katharine A. O'Keeffe. 
D Literature in School ; The Place of Literature in Common School 

Education ; Nursery Classics in School ; American Classics in School. By 

Horace E. Scudder. 
E Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dialogues and Scenes. 
jF Longfellow Leaflets. (Each a Double Number, 30 cents; linen 

Whittier Leaflets. covers, 40 cents.) Poems and Prose 
M Holmes Leaflets. Passages for Beading and Becitation. 

1 The Riverside Manual for Teachers, containing Suggestions 

and Illustrative Lessons leading up to Primary Reading. By I. F. Hall. 

K The Riverside Primer and Reader. (Special Number.) 
In paper covers, with cloth back, 25 cents. In strong linen binding, 30 cents. 

L The Riverside Song Book. Containing Classic American 
Poems set to Standard Music. (Double Number, 30 cents; boards, 40 cents.) 

M Lowell's Fable for Critics. With Outline Portraits of Au- 
thors. (Double Number, 30 cents.) 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 



Clje Bibersfae literature ^erte& 

(Vith Introductions, Notes, Historical Sketches, and Biographical Sketches. 
Each tegular single number, in paper covers, 15 cents. 

1. Longfellow's Evangeline.** J} 

2. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish; Elizabeth.** 

3. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. Dramatized. 

4. Whittier's Snow-Bound, and Other Poems.** JJ * 

5. Whittier's Mabel Martin, and Other Poems* 

6. Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc. 
7„ 8, 9. Hawthorne's True Stories from New England His- 
tory. 1620-1803. In three parts.t 

30. Hawthorne's Biographical Stories. With Questions * 

11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, and Other Selections.* 

12. Studies in Longfellow. Containing- Thirty -Two Topics for 

Study, with Questions and References relating to each Topic. 
IS, 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. In two parts. J 

15. Lowell's Under the Old Elm, and Other Poems.* 

16. Bayard Taylor's Lars ; a Pastoral of Norway. 

17. 18. Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book. In two parts. J 

19, 20. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. In two parts. J 

21. Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, etc. 

22, 23. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. In two parts. J 

24. Washington's Rules of Conduct, Letters and Addresses.** 

25, 26. Longfellow's Golden Legend. In two parts.J 

27. Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees, Sounds, and Wild 

Apples. With a Biographical Sketch by R. W. Emerson. 

28. John Burroughs's Birds and Bees.* 

29. Hawthorne's Little Daffy downdilly, and Other Stories.* 

30. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Pieces. fj * 

31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, and Other Papers. 

32. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, and Other Papers. 
33, 34, 35. Longfellow's Tales of a "Wayside Inn. In three parts. 

[The three parts also in one volume, linen covers, 50 cents.] 
36. John Burroughs's Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers * 
37c Charles Dudley Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc.** 
38. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, and Other Poems. 
39c Lowell's Books and Libraries, and Other Papers. 
40. Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills, and Sketches * 
4'.. Whittier's Tent on the Beach. 

42. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, and Other Essays, 

including The American Scholar. 

43. Ulysses among the Phseacians. From W. C. Bryant's Trans- 

lation of Homer's Odyssey. 

44. Edgeworth's Waste Not, Want Not, and Barring Out. 

45. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 

46. Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language. From th« 

Dispersion at Babel to the Conquest of Canaan. 

47. 48. Fables and Folk Stories. Second Reader Grade 

Phrased by Horace E. Scudder. In two parts.J 

49, 50. Hans Andersen's Stories. In two parts.J 

* 29 and 10 also in one volume, linen covers, 40 cents j likewise 28 and 36, 4 and 
5, 15 and 30, 40 and 69, and 11 and 63. 
** Also bound in linen covers, 25 cents. 

f Also in one volume, linen covers, 45 cents. 

t Also in one volume, linen covers, 40 cents. 
tt 1 4, and 30 also in one volume, linen covers, 50 cents. 

Continued on the inside of this cover. 

HOUGHTON. MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper procesi 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2009 

PreservationTechnologiei 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIOI 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 

n r >A\ 77Q.9111 



